This recording of choral works borrows its title from the five-part mass penned by Stephen Paulus that opens the disc, but there are a host of smaller works packed in behind that share a similar hovering, timeless quality. Leaving the formal Latin of mass behind, Eric Whitacre delves into the spiritual by meditating on just […]

Equal parts prog rock, funk, and jazz, with a strange, space age, bachelor pad bent at times, the Wayne Peet Quartet effortlessly weave surprising jams that wander into dissonant and noisy terrains. Take the tune “Inner Funkdom,” which clocks in at over eleven minutes though it’s the shortest track on the disc. These guys are […]

Niagara Brass EnsembleAside from microtones, my other big soft spot is quintuple time. Throw something in five and I’m bound to love it! So perhaps you should temper the rave you’re about to read about the second movement of Nancy Van de Vate’s Brass Quintet accordingly. The music spirals around a relentless 5/8 hocket between […]

Dominic Frasca has been dubbed “Guitar Hero of 2005″ by Guitar Player Magazine, so despite the virtuosity on display, his first solo outing—originally a self-release but now being given a second pressing on Cantaloupe Records—might not really need the disclaimer that the entire album was performed “on solo guitar in real time, with no loops, […]

Don’t let the spoofy title put you off. George Crumb’s Eine Kleine Mitternachtmusik owes nothing to Mozart’s elevator music classic. But as the title implies, the music certainly is dark in mood, taking advantage of the resonant qualities of the piano, augmented by the sostenuto pedal, stopped harmonics, and plucked strings. As it turns out, […]

The most fascinating compositions by Robert Morris, the current chair of the composition department at the Eastman School of Music, have been large-scale environmental works that allow listeners to wander through them on their own. A new album of his recent much-smaller scale chamber pieces, while not requiring good walking shoes, also invites listeners to […]

Robert DeGaetano, piano Indulging in the cliché that everything old was once new, it’s a rather lovely thing in the context of all this new music to step back onto Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s 19th century company with this new disc of some of the composer’s most popular songs. Considerably heavier than the rest of the […]

I have to admit that I’m not particularly fond of vocal music, or tubas either for that matter, which doesn’t quite explain why I immediately skipped to seventh track of this CD of music by Guillermo Gregorio. According to the track listing, Irish composer Jennifer Walshe—I’ve been a fan of hers for years—was the vocalist […]

Nearly fifteen years ago, jazz producer Helen Keane who had been Bill Evans manager for decades, produced a demo of a jazz piano trio featuring Roger Davidson, who is also known as a composer of large scale orchestral and choral works. This recording, Davidson’s first as a jazzer and a rubric for subsequent forays such […]

More than a year after their final concert, The Dale Warland Singers are letting their fans down easy by releasing a few last CDs, and the Twin Cities-based a cappella choral group is in characteristically fine form on this outing. I was prepared for a slightly drippy, sentimental effort based on the album’s title, but […]

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NewMusicBox, a multimedia publication from New Music USA, is dedicated to the music of American composers and improvisers and their champions. NewMusicBox offers: in-depth profiles, articles, and discussions; up-to-the-minute industry news and commentary; a direct portal to our internet radio station, Counterstream; and access to an online library of more than 57,000 works by more than 6,000 composers.